Richard Orr column: FLDS member may see Lockney as new Eldorado
 
Plainview Daily Herald - Plainview, Texas
 
There's an unspoken fear among some Lockney residents that what happened when the FLDS religious cult that set up a walled compound in Eldorado three years ago could happen to their little town.

Eldorado has about 2,000 residents and sits in prime deer-hunting country south of San Angelo, some 260 miles from Waco. In November 2003, a man named David Allen Steed bought a 1,700-acre ranch outside of town, saying it would be used as a hunting retreat for wealthy business clients.

But the town's newspaper, the Eldorado Success, took a closer look and discovered Steed was really an agent for the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, which dissociated itself from the main body of the Mormon church after it disavowed polygamy in the early 1900s.

FLDS set up shop in a community called Short Creek on the Utah-Arizona border, which divides the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.

According to an intelligence report in the Southern Law Center by Susy Buchanan, FLDS members took control of city government, the police force, the schools and "every aspect of life."

Short Creek was run with a mailed fist by 48-year-old self-anointed prophet Warren Jeffs following the death of his father, who left a large assortment of wives and children in his wake. The younger Jeffs is now in federal custody awaiting trial on a litany of charges — including statutory rape, bigamy and arranging marriages between older men and underage girls in the group.

Among other things, he taught that blacks are "cursed with a black skin" and chosen by God to "be servants of servants." Furthermore, women are to be seen and not heard as they generate baby after baby in propagating the faith.

As his power and control grew, the intelligence report noted that Jeffs had all dogs shot, closed the town zoo and forbade television, movies, music, laughter, swimming and water sports. He also reportedly set up "God squads" to spy — Hitler-style —on the lives of his followers and report any infractions of his precepts.

Following a growing number of complaints and lawsuits, the State of Utah assumed control of FLDS finances, apparently prompting the move to Eldorado by what local folks were now told would be an "outpost and retreat" for about 500 Short Creek residents.

With that revelation, Eldorado Success editor Randy Mankin wrote: "There's a new town moving into our county. They could easily outnumber everyone in the city if they need to. We're very concerned about that."

Before long, the Eldorado "retreat" became — in Mankin’s words — "a stand-alone town complete with a public water system, a dairy, nearly two dozen large homes and a massive white limestone temple. There are a number of shop buildings and warehouses, plus a large storehouse which serves as a grocery, dry goods and hardware store."

"Judging by the size of the water system and the sewer plant, it's not difficult to imagine that in a few short years, the (compound's) population will surpass the number of locals."

That brings us back to Lockney and a man named Samuel Fischer, a FLDS businessman from Hildale who's buying the old Tye manufacturing plant for $750,000 and turning it into a modular and custom-cabinet shop.

Fischer called for a public get-together May 11 in the Lockney Community Center to explain himself and how he plans on bettering the community’s flagging economy.

While he was basically forthcoming, some of his answers to written questions from the audience left something to be desired — like when he said he was "giving up a million-dollar home" in Hildale. Actually, he's not giving it up at all. It's apparently being taken over by the state as part of its seizure of the FLDS finance wing, the United Effort Trust.

Although Fischer refers to Warren Jeffs as his "spiritual leader," he was vague when asked about their relationship and said because he "wasn't there," he couldn't confirm that Jeffs was in a new Cadillac Escalade when stopped by the Nevada Highway Patrol last year for a traffic violation and taken into custody on a number of outstanding warrants.

He was also vague about his two "ladies" — one of whom he married in his late teens and another whom he "adopted," along with her 11 children — after her husband was abusive and unfaithful. Combined, he has 24 children.

He's been quoted as saying he not only practiced polygamy, he "lived it." Asked if his views on marriage conflict with the secular law against bigamy, he replied: "It sounds like it may. But tell me, do I throw out my family?"

He appeared irritated when asked what Jeffs is charged with, saying: "Is that relative to what we do here?"

And he hedged when asked about who would be living in the three homes he's purchased in Plainview — at first saying he didn't know. Then, under pressure from the audience, he said they're for his family and "other key people" that might be moving here.

That kind of dancing around questions left a lot of folks a bit uneasy as to what his real plans are — reminiscent of Steed saying Eldorado was to be a hunting retreat. Mr. Fischer will bear some close watching.

This country may have been founded on religious principles, but it runs on secular law. Those who feel constrained by that fact are free to leave.

(Richard Orr is a Herald correspondent. Contact him at royko@sptc.net)
 
MyPlainview.com
Originally published May 19, 2007
 
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